People said the same thing about personal computers in the early 70s and look where we are now.
I have an Alexa which was gifted to me. My son loves it. The rest of us enjoyed it the first day and never looked at it after.
Digital assistants have value, but Alexa on its own caters to a frivolous use-case that trades away a lot of privacy for little value.
PCs started out the same way but gradually expanding into solving more and more solutions. Oh, and I have never used my echo to do anything with prime.
> I have an Alexa which was gifted to me. My son loves it.
Marketers chase after young people because they tend to lead changes. You might want to look at why your son loves it.
Do you not use your Echo for prime music?
About Alexa and Prime, I would also point you to this from the horses mouth: https://www.amazon.com/primeinsider/tips/alexa-tips.html .
I'm curious by the way: what do you use the echo for which your phone doesn't do better?
The echo serves as a good home music speaker which I can control through spotify on my phone/computer/voice (through echo).
Outside of that, setting timers, asking the weather, random questions (my girlfriend uses cooking/math conversions a lot, but alexa isn't as good as google for random facts from my experience). My girlfriend loves to use it while getting ready and cooking since her hands are busy for hours during those times.
Alexa is easier than pulling out your phone, finding the app you need, waiting for it to load, possibly having to authenticate, then making the change you need, in lots of cases.
Thermostat, lights, podcasts, quick questions, timers and more.
Humans can do anything a computer does because we made them. We just cannot do everything a computer does as fast.
> alexa is doing things that practically every other smart device can do as well
So did the first iphone but there is a lot more to it.
The Echo isn't at its full potential, but the basics can be useful and you can see where it's going. Once they handle a broader variety of things, they will be a no-brainer for every household that isn't nervous about privacy issues. (i.e., almost everyone)
I use it to set cooking timers without stopping what I'm doing or needing a hand free. My kids use it to play music. e.g., my three year old can play a particular album without knowing how to spell it and without having to nag me to do it. They also love asking it questions like "how many teeth does a horse have?" or "how much does an elephant weigh?"